My response to David Battino's post on dealing with USB dongles:
Yeah! I suggest they stop using dongles!
Seriously, I don't understand the recent resurgence of copy-protection dongles. While the nominal reason is to prevent copies, I feel that what dongles do is prevent many potential users from evaluating and purchasing the program.
Let's face it: Not everyone can afford to plunk down $300, $500 or $999 for a piece of software, only to find that it's
- a piece of crap
- doesn't suit their needs
- both of the above
In many cases, I have only purchased software that I was able to evaluate first. Back in the day, I never bought a copy of Logic for my Atari ST until I copied a friend's version, played with it, and saw what it could do for my collection of synths and my musical compositions.
I'm not promoting piracy here by any means. These companies need to make money to continue producing software. But many of these companies don't offer trial versions, or if they do, the trial versions are broken - you can't save anything, or you're limited to one track in a multi-track DAW, or something else that makes evaluation impossible.
At least the three USB dongles that David pictures in his post are from companies who all provide product demos of various kinds. Antares gives you time-limited FULL versions of their products. Kudos to Antares!
Bias gives you time-limited LE trial versions. If you want to evaluate the Peak Pro version, tough. Arturia makes it even harder: You have to BUY a USB trial key to demo any of their products, and they'll give you a refund if you don't want to keep the USB trial key. How convenient.
Sometimes it feels to me like these companies don't want you to know their product sucks, so they make it exceptionally hard for you to demo the product and decide for yourself.
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Read More Entries by Roger Weeks.
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I also find it interesting that other types of artistic software don't have to resort to dongles for copy protection. Take graphical design for instance:
None of the Adobe set of programs uses a dongle. They rely on software key-based copy protection. This even applies to their video software.
Apple requires a key for Logic Pro, but not for any of their other Pro applications like Soundtrack, Final Cut, or DVD Studio. This is most probably because they purchased Logic while the other programs were developed internally.
Hey Roger. Thanks for picking up on the unstated question: Why deal with dongles anyway? The Arturia case is especially interesting because the company admits (PDF file) that its dongle technology has already been broken. (I love the line “Cubase and Nuendo enjoyed an entire year without any cracked version available.”)
The uglier issue is that some of these copy-protection schemes require submitting personal information. There’s a creepy photo on the back page of the April Wired extrapolating how we might interact with computers in the future: “Under penalties of perjury, I declare that this is my real thumbprint and not from a simulation, amputation, or biofarmed copy.” An adjacent field asks if the user has been a victim of identity theft that year.